Orange County
Weekly Article

Mickey the Mason

Behind the door of Uncle
Walt’s exclusive Club 33

By Dan Kapelovitz

Thursday, February 13,
2003 - 12:00 am

Illustration by Bob Aul

Deep in the heart of the Happiest
Place on Earth, Disneyland’s semi-secret restaurant
Club 33 beats like a pacemaker. Officially, the club
is located at 33 Rue Royale in New Orleans Square,
near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. A decorative
"33" and an intercom next to a French Quarter-style
door are the only markers of the club’s entrance.
Disneyland’s info line says 33 is the product of
Walt Disney’s "vision of a quiet, elegant place
where he could entertain special guests." Sadly,
Jesus had other plans, and Mickey Mouse’s pappy
ascended to that Magic Kingdom in the sky five
months before the club’s 1967 completion.

With Walt gone, it was decided to
allow the public to dine there—or, rather, some of
the public. Only card-carrying Club 33 members and
their guests can enter the exclusive club.
Individual gold memberships run $7,500, plus $2,500
in annual dues. Even if one does have this kind of
excess income, there’s a multiyear waiting list.

Luckily, W.B. Shaffner and Ana
Medina—former owners of Archaic Idiot, a groovy,
since-shuttered East Hollywood oddities shop—number
among their many ex-customers a Club 33 member. They
obtained passes for themselves and
psychedelic-sex-cult priestess Giddle Partridge,
Death in June front man Douglas Pearce, and
noise-music pioneer/Disneyland fanatic Boyd Rice.
And me.

After buzzing us in, the hostess
directed us to the second-floor dining facilities,
decorated with 19th-century antiques and
reproductions. There’s an oak telephone based on the
one in the 1967 Disney film The Happiest
Millionaire. Ornate, iron-railed balconies
overlook the park’s "Mississippi River." In the
women’s bathroom, ladies sit on an actual throne
strategically placed over a waiting toilet. At one
time, the club featured hidden microphones and
speakers. Although it’s rumored that these were
installed so Walt could eavesdrop on guests,
officially they allowed a Disney performer to
entertain dignitaries by talking to them through one
of several animatronic birds.

The number 33 is omnipresent;
even foil butter wrappers are ordained with the
mystical number. Disney literature insists the
number is derived from the address. Yet
pseudo-addresses on faux streets are obviously
whatever Disneyland wants them to be. So why 33? One
theory is that Walt Disney was a 33rd Degree
Freemason, the order’s highest level. And that
number’s significance? It’s the age Jesus was said
to have been when he was crucified. However, the
Internet urban-legend debunkers at Snopes.com give
their own elaborate explanation: after Walt passed
away, 33 of the 47 amusement-park participants voted
to create the semi-public club. This seems even less
likely than the Freemason theory. Could Snopes.com
be part of an elaborate Masonic conspiracy? Rice, an
avid student of religious symbolism who has dined at
the club a few times, says he looks for overt
Masonic imagery whenever he’s there. The closest he
has found to Masonic masonry is at the top of the
windows, where there are designs that are almost
shaped like an eye.

The staff is superfriendly in
that Disneyland way. One extra-supernice waiter
dressed in the blue Club 33 uniform told us ’70s pop
idol Bobby Sherman is a long-standing member who
visits often and brings presents to club employees.
His autobiography, Bobby Sherman: Still
Remembering You, suggests the guy is obsessed
with Disneyland. The former star of such TV shows as
Here Come the Brides and Getting Together
has made three elaborate scale models of the
amusement park, the first when he was only 13.

The cuisine is by far the best in
all the land of Disney, which, in itself, isn’t
saying much. We each ordered the all-you-can-eat
buffet—tasty cold cuts, chicken, fruit, beef, a
variety of salads, artichoke hearts and pasta dishes
prepared by a chef any way you desire. The buffet
costs $47, but club guests receive free admission to
both Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure.
Wine, however, is extra.

Delighted to be in the only place
in Disneyland that serves alcohol, Pearce ordered
bottle after bottle of chardonnay. Luckily, the Goth
rocker from Down Under had plenty of cash in his
kangaroo-testicle pouch. We paid the bill and left
the heavenly serenity of Club 33 for the reenacted
hell of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Club 33 is located at 33 Rue Royale,
New Orleans Square, Disneyland. It’s members-only